Unless otherwise indicated herein, the materials described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Along with advances in electronics and mechanical sciences, progress in material science has resulted in a worldwide consumer economy, where billions of assembled items exchange hands every day. Electronic devices are an illustrative example of consumer goods that include many different materials such as various metal parts, plastics, and similar components integrated through different assembly mechanisms. While many such items are designed with reliability, ergonomics, power consumption, and comparable parameters in mind, environmental considerations are increasingly playing a role in the design of electronic devices and other assembled goods. Recyclability is one of the environmental considerations in designing consumer goods.
The present disclosure appreciates that there are several limitations with recycling. For example, a typical electronic device may contain a number of dissimilar materials, which may require distinct recycling processes. Since components of assembled items are typically attached in a variety of ways, disassembling them prior to recycling may be a time consuming task. Moreover, due to a variety of assembled item sizes and types, it may be difficult to automate the disassembly process at a recycling location, where many different types of items may be processed. Mechanical methods such as crushing and separating may result in mixing of materials reducing the efficiency of the recycling process.